Sabotage
by smileypv
Summary: Warning: this story references spoilers for episodes 7.117.13 What is going on in Lorelai's mind? This oneshot is an exploration of the mind of Lorelai Gilmore as she enters this second part of the 7th season.


**"Sabotage"**

**Warning:** This story contains spoilers or hints at spoilers for episodes 7.11 – 7.13.

**Disclaimer:** If these characters were mine, I would have you guys writing the stories!

It's too cold, really, for her to be sitting outside. The frosty chill of late December has descended over the landscape and Lorelai can't help wanting to take it in. Besides, her house is empty and cold, no life to be had in there, save for that of Paul Anka. Christopher is elsewhere, a condition indicated by the absence of his car. So rather than sit inside her lonely house, she sits outside, where trees and shimmering snowflakes and the furtive movements of squirrels indicates that there is life to be had here. Where there is life, there is hope, she thinks, which is precisely why she cannot go inside.

Each time she walks into the house, she feels her breath catch for just a second. Her mind whirls through those fantasies she's seen in oh-so-many television shows and movies she's watched where the main character walks in hoping to find that the person that character misses is standing there, only to be disappointed when that isn't to be. A stubborn part of her already stubborn brain imagines Luke's broad smile rather than Christopher's half-smirk. When she realizes the truth, she always lays her keys down in defeat. For her, the house still smacks of what could have been, even as she has emptied it of the reminders of who could have been. The presence of Christopher's things is still foreign amongst the reminders of the life she had built here.

Tonight, though, just for this moment at least, she does not want to walk in and do that again. With Christopher gone, she can be alone, but honestly that is the last thing she wants and probably the one thing she needs. She knows she needs to be alone. She hears her mother's advice once again and disagrees with her as always. No one wants to be alone, this she knows, but sometimes one needs to be so that introspection can take place, so that emotions are processed and thoughts are worked through. If this were Rory, if this were anyone but herself, she would have already said that some alone time might be the best thing. But she cannot say this to herself because even as she realizes how wrong her mother's advice is (at least the alone part), she cannot trust herself to be rebelling against that advice for any reason other than habit. She cannot trust anything about herself anymore.

She hasn't quite been able to work out what about herself she has chosen and what has been a reaction to her parents' desires and opinions. The move to Stars Hollow was a bit of both. Her preferences for junk food and coffee probably come from the refined palette her mother had. The choice to focus her career on running an inn came first out of necessity, but later out of a veritable knack for multitasking and handling people of all kinds. Perhaps it is her training for a life as a socialite that she has to thank for part of her talents at her job. Her taste in men, though, she can never quite reconcile. Christopher, Max, Alex, Jason, and finally Luke. No matter how hard she tries, she cannot find a pattern there. When she and Christopher were first together, they were so young and both unhappy and bored with the lives they had; they were each other's comfort that their desires for a different life were not singular. With Max, she was finally imagining a life beyond Rory. Her daughter was sixteen then and only a couple of years away from college; for the first time, Lorelai gave herself a chance to think about the rest of her life. But he was not the right guy for that and she still felt a spark of regret for putting him through what she did. Alex was yet another chance to feel life after Rory out; yes, it petered out, but not without Lorelai realizing that casual relationships could be fun. That's what Jason was: casual. At least, at first it was. Part of his attractiveness came in that her parents would (and did) freak, but his feelings for her were clearly more than casual. Coupling that with the lawsuit, Lorelai had to let him go. If true feeling was ever going to be in her life, it would not have been with Jason Stiles. She finds it ironic that she might be able to credit Jason with being the catalyst for sparking her relationship with Luke. Would he have kissed her that night on the Dragonfly's front porch if Jason hadn't been there to rile him up? Or would that kiss have come later, perhaps after that movie date that took seven weeks rather than just a few days, thanks to Liz and TJ's accident?

_Luke_. She shook her head as if to clear it of all thoughts of him. But she knows she can't and that is one of the reasons why she can't go in her house yet. She thought she had rid it of all things him, that the gradual accrual of Christopher's things would provide the first layer of dirt that would eventually bury all memories of Luke. Yet something keeps digging them up again and she knows what that something is. It is her. As her mother would put it, she is sabotaging herself. She is purposely making things difficult for herself by resisting Christopher, by not letting him in.

Part of her doesn't want things to be difficult with him. Part of her remembers standing ready in a blue dress, ready to walk down the aisle for Sookie's wedding, ready to walk into the possibility of a life with him, but Sherry's phone call changed that in an instant. How ironic that she came to him again in a blue dress, this time seeking comfort in reassurance in light of a perceived ending to the one thing she had been seeking her whole life. Both times Christopher's arms were welcoming, but the second time she sought them not for the man they were attached to; instead they were something, anything that could hold her together. When she drove to Boston that night, she felt bits of her falling away with each mile. When she drove back the next day, the pieces weren't there to retrieve and rebuild. She had left something behind with each step away from Luke. Each step toward Christopher was not toward rebuilding, which begged the question why he was there at all. What was she doing? She didn't know.

She pauses in her thinking to attempt to extract another few drops of coffee from the to-go cup she had brought home from the Inn. She has done everything she could to find coffee similar enough to Luke's that she wouldn't miss its taste so much, but even Sookie's best efforts pale in comparison to the taste of Luke's legendary coffee. Sadly, Rory isn't there for her to coerce into buying her mother a vat of the stuff. When she sees headlights approach, her heart jumps with a faint sense of dread that it might be Christopher. As the car passes her house, she exhales slightly and then looks down at the empty coffee cup in her hands. She puts it down and buries her head in her hands.

In her mind, she sees Luke with his green truck standing packed behind him, telling her he's ready. _Two days too late, _she thinks.

In her mind, she sees herself with Christopher in the classic Mustang, watching "Funny Face" projected onto the side of the barn. _Too much too soon_, she thinks.

In her mind, she sees herself standing there, watching Christopher walk away after their argument in front of her mother and the party planner. _Who is this woman I've become_, she asks herself.

She cannot ask herself that out loud because she knows that she cannot answer it. The person she is today was borne of a single moment or decision; it is a gradual accrual of things. Of Rory's departure for Yale and the accompanying questions about what her life would be after that. Of the summer that followed that, when the inn opened, her relationship with Luke deepened, and her reaction to Rory's night with Dean drove her daughter to Europe. Of the summer and fall after that when a wide chasm developed between her and her daughter. Of the fear and uncertainty that accompanied the discovery of Luke's long-lost child. Where once she had been a seventeen-year-old with enough strength and determination to leave home with her year-old daughter to make a life for themselves, she was now a woman who could not be without a man, who feared loneliness so much that she was willing to settle in order to avoid it, but then allow her dissatisfaction with her own settling to overwhelm her. At every turn she was doing something wrong, saying the wrong words, thinking the wrong thoughts, feeling the wrong things. When one realizes that a certain movement or decision results in pain, one takes care not to repeat that in order to avoid the pain. Lorelai knows that she has not the energy or wherewithal to avoid the repetition. So she feels doomed to remain inert, never changing direction, simply unable to go forward or back.

_"A ring is no guarantee." _

Her mother had said that when she was standing on the same porch not too long ago. Lorelai rolled her eyes at the thought of it; why couldn't her mother had given her the same advice months ago when Luke presented her the diamond ring she had unceremoniously removed on a date she does not remember, only that it preceded agreeing to a date with Christopher? If she had known this, would she have done anything differently? Would she still have asked Luke to marry her? If she had known this, would she have accepted Christopher's proposal and stood hand in hand with him in that French chapel? She wants some sort of certainty from somewhere; where was the certainty she had felt before? She felt that there was no one left to trust, herself least of all. If a ring, in all its eternity of shape, is no guarantee, then what is?

As she plays with her ring, she thinks not of the smile on Christopher's face when he slid it on her finger. She thinks of the look on Luke's face when they stood there in the hospital waiting room, the doctor's voice drowned out by the silence that fell between them when he saw the ring on her left hand. She sees his face again in her mind and mulls over the hurt she saw there. He looked as if he had been punched in the stomach; she hears the breath he quickly expelled over and over in her mind. Why is this what she thinks of when she sees this gold band? Why is it not the happiness she tried to feel when the vows came falling out of her lips? Why is it that she cannot remember falling into bed with Christopher that night of her ultimatum but she can remember the stoniness of Luke's face as she turned to walk away? Why is it that she cannot remember the comfort she was supposed to feel from her husband's body, but she can still feel the true heartache she felt standing in that grocery story listening to Luke tell her that maybe they just weren't meant to be together? It is all so acute this accumulation of heartbreak. She knows what she has done to Luke. She knows what she is doing to Christopher. She does not want to know what she has done to herself for she fears that she will never be able to undo it.

At the party that her parents had thrown for her and Christopher, they stood in front of the crowd of expectant faces and exchanged vows once again. She does not know how she got through that moment. If it had not been for Rory, who had squeezed her hand and reassured her throughout the night, she might have found a way to sneak out unnoticed, which would have been difficult considering the party was for her but Lorelai had a knack for running away. She probably would have found a way; instead, her daughter found her hyperventilating in the restroom beforehand and dragged her reluctantly back to the waiting crowd of well-wishers. The idea of exchanging vows with Christopher in front of others apparently made her physically ill, but she knows she would never admit this to anyone. She could not even say it out loud to a knowing Rory. She tries to hide the doubt, but she feels each day like the battle is spinning more and more out of her control.

She remembers the mall, shopping with Rory for their 'Christmas after, well, Christmas' celebration, meant to make up for Rory's absence during the holidays. The Gilmore girls ran into Luke and April there; as they exited the brief conversation, Lorelai remembers the look on Rory's face, a sort of wistfulness that she was not sure her daughter knew was there. Perhaps Rory was thinking about what might have been. It caught her mother's attention and soon she found herself thinking along the same lines. Going home was especially difficult that night.

She knows this is why she was spending so many nights working at the Dragonfly. She knows this is why Sookie mentions that Jackson saw Christopher closing the bar more than once these last couple of weeks. She knows that they – her mother, Rory, Sookie – are looking at her and asking why she is sabotaging this, why she can't just be happy for once. She wishes she could answer that herself. She wishes she could look at everyone and be honest. The only person, though, that could ever truly tell what she was thinking was not there to read her. He would know. He would see it and would tell her what to do. She wants to ask him, _What's wrong with me? _Despite herself, despite the distance she has created, she sets down the coffee cup and begins to walk toward the diner. He would be closing right about this time. She is determined to stand in his presence for a moment, just the two of them, and somehow a diagnosis for her problems would come to her.

As she walks, the cold breeze her fast pace creates forces her to squint her eyes and, in the warmth of her gloved hands, covered head, and shielded face, she begins to ask herself questions.

_What am I doing? _

_Why was I so impatient?_

_Why can I not stop all of this? _

_Why can I not see the looks of doubt on my loved ones' faces?_

_Why can I not stop hurting people?_

_Why can I not stop punishing myself? _

As she asks the last question, she knows that is what the sabotage is all about. She faces the possibility that she sabotaged her relationship with Luke to punish herself for her reticence and her impatience. She faces the idea that she is sabotaging her relationship with Christopher as penance for her betrayal of Luke. She confronts head on the question of how she will forgive herself for all of this, for all of the hurt she is causing everyone, least of all herself.

As she asks herself about forgiveness, her foot comes to rest on the concrete in front of the diner. He is in there, dancing with the mop. She reaches for the knob and turns it, sucking in a deep breath as she does. As the diner's bell rings, announcing her presence, Luke turns around and stops when he sees her, his face registering surprise. Lorelai opens her mouth to say something when her phone rings. She shoots Luke a look of apology/dismay as she scrambles to answer it. On the other end, she hears her mother's hysterical voice.

"Lorelai, your father – "

"Mom?" Lorelai's stomach churns with panic at the note in Emily Gilmore's voice. Her eyes fill with tears as her mother speaks quickly and then hangs up on her abruptly.

Luke must see the tears for he takes a couple of steps closer to her.

"It's my father—" she manages as Luke's arms encircle her.


End file.
